Friday, 19 April 2013

New Van Hool 'megabusgold.com' Vehicles Launched

Stagecoach has announced it is to launch a major network of overnight
sleepercoach services from Scotland to London this summer using a £5m
fleet of specially-designed Van Hool vehicles. More pictures of the new vehicles can be found here

The fleet of 10 new coaches,
equipped with a clever interior layout that allows the leather seats to
be converted into lie-flat beds, will operate overnight seven days a
week. Sleepercoach services will link
London with Aberdeen, Aviemore, Cumbernauld Dundee, Dunfermline
Edinburgh, Falkirk, Ferrytoll park and ride in Fife, Glasgow Inverness
and Perth. The services will provide more than 1,700 lie-flat beds between Scotland and London every single week. The state-of-the-art double-deck
coaches boast luxury leather seats with tables, power sockets, free
Wi-Fi and a toilet. The specially designed vehicles have 53 seats that
convert into 42 beds.Customers will receive
complimentary refreshments during their journey as well as a sleeper kit
which includes an eye mask, a toothbrush and toothpaste. In addition,
as a pilot, passengers will also be given a choice of a blanket or a
onesie to sleep in during their journey. Prices on the new services will
range from £15 to £60. Journey times are comparable to existing sleeper
train services, with customers able to make the trip from both Edinburgh
and Glasgow to London in less than eight hours.

The
launch of the new sleepercoach network follows the huge success of a
pilot route between Glasgow and London using refurbished vehicles fitted
with bunk beds.

Sir Brian in a onesie, who would have thought it!

Stagecoach
Group Chief Executive Sir Brian Souter, who unveiled the first of
the new coaches at The O2 in London, said: “It used to be just popstars
that had beds on board their tour buses – now everyone can benefit from
a comfortable, great value overnight journey. You can go to sleep in
one city and wake up in another ready to start the day without having to
pay extra for an expensive hotel room.”

Specially designed and manufactured
by Van Hool in Belgium, the sleepercoaches will operate under a new
megabusgold.com brand. The first of the new coaches will replace
existing vehicles on the current overnight route between Glasgow and
London. All routes on the sleepercoach network are expected to be
launched during the summer and will be operated through the Scottish
Citylink joint venture between Stagecoach and international transport
group ComfortDelGro.The vehicles will also be used to
operate on the existing Scottish Citylink Gold network through the day
between Glasgow and Aberdeen and Inverness. Details hereIn 2003, Stagecoach launched the
budget service megabus.com, revolutionising coach travel by offering
fares from just £1* via a simple online booking system. Around five
million passengers now use megabus.com in the UK every year to travel to
more than 60 locations across the country.Stagecoach expanded the megabus.com
brand to North America in 2006. It now serves more than 100 locations
in the United States and Canada, and has welcomed around 25 million
passengers.

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